The Catholic Church is losing younger members, especially among Hispanics millennials, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center.

While Hispanics continue to be a pillar of the Catholic Church, the report, “The Shifting Religious Identity of Latinos in the United States,” found that nearly one in four identify as former Catholics.

Millennial adults, Americans 18 and older but born after 1980, are “more detached from institutions” including traditional religion, the report found. Young Latinos are leaving the church and joining the “nones,” people who do not affiliate with any religion.

According to Pew, nearly a third of all millennials (31 percent) are religiously unaffiliated. Twenty-eight percent of Hispanic millennials have no particular religion or are atheist or agnostic. By comparison, the percentages of Hispanic adults overall and American adults overall who are religiously unaffiliated are lower (18 percent of Hispanics, 20 percent of all U.S. adults).

“Everyone was surprised in some way by the findings, the first time the size of the decline in Hispanic Catholics has been measured in depth,” Pew research associate Jessica Hamar Martínez told the National Catholic Reporter.

“If both (immigration and shifting) trends continue, a day could come when a majority of Catholics in the United States will be Hispanic, even though the majority of Hispanics might no longer be Catholic,” the survey said.

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“Angels of Abundance,” by Doreen and Grant Virtue

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The Word

Absolution: In Catholicism, a priest grants absolution to a confessed sinner as part of the sacrament of penance. The concept of absolution also exists in Lutheranism, Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodox denominations.

— ReligionStylebook.com

Religion Around the World

According to the CIA World Factbook, the religious makeup of Mexico is: